Waitākere Ranges Regional Park
Sixteen thousand hectares of rainforest between the city and the sea, and about 250km of track through it.

The big one. Kauri and nikau all the way from Scenic Drive down to the black sand, with the coast at the bottom of nearly every valley. Arataki is the gateway and the place to check what is open, because kauri dieback closes tracks and the closures move. Nothing here is a stroll: the gradients are real and the weather turns.
Photos
itravelNZ® - New Zealand in your pocket™ · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons VirtualWolf · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons VirtualWolf · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons Michal Klajban · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Facilities checked 2026-08-13 againstaucklandcouncil.govt.nz, data-aucklandcouncil.opendata.arcgis.com
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